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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22385758">the only house that's not on fire (yet)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/soundthebells'>soundthebells (kosy)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(depending on what view you subscribe to), A Little Sad Because It's TMA But It's Upsettingly Fluffy Other Than That, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Missing Scene/Canon Divergence, Pining, The Scotland Cottage, post MAG159 pre MAG160 babeyyyyyyy, soft, you know the Good Cow era? yeah</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:40:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22385758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/soundthebells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Martin takes to waking up early, once he’s given the option.</i><br/> </p><p> </p><p>A morning at the safehouse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>383</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the only house that's not on fire (yet)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i don't know what to tell you. this is what it is, and what it is is shameless get-together fluff. i hope you like reading it as much as i shamelessly enjoyed writing it &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Martin takes to waking up early, once he’s given the option. </p><p>Working at the Institute, he’d taken every last second of rest he could possibly get. <em> Not necessarily hiding from consciousness, </em> he’d hurry to justify, though really nobody would blame him, all things considered, <em> just not necessarily seeking it out either. </em> But at the cottage, the pale morning light shines in through thin curtains—he gets the sense Daisy didn’t actually sleep here, or the bedroom windows would probably be boarded up—and he finds he can’t find his way back to the nothing of sleep. He’s reticent to leave Jon alone in the bed they have to share for the time being (only one bed and neither of them were really young enough to make a convincing argument for sleeping on the couch, so. And, well. It’s not as if Martin minds. Which he can’t say, but. But.), of course, but it’d be senseless to stay in bed for hours waiting for Jon to awaken as well. And it really would be hours, with Jon. Turns out that when he’s given the option, he sleeps like a corpse. Martin had almost panicked the first morning they were in the cottage. Had to shake him awake when he didn’t respond to his name. Jon had squinted at him with bleary eyes that had quickly shocked awake into fear at Martin’s expression, asked him what the hell was wrong, and Martin had almost wept. </p><p>Mercifully, he hadn’t asked what happened, just nodded wordlessly and squeezed his hand until Martin’s breathing slowed back to a regular pace. Now, Martin’s almost used to it, though it still twists at his heart, seeing Jon curled tense and in absolute stillness against the wall, arms wrapped tight across his own chest like he’s trying to protect himself even in his sleep. He claims to be comfortable, but. He looks so small when he’s asleep. Martin is technically larger than Jon, has almost a head of height over him, but he’d always perceived Jon as bigger just by force of personality; when Jon’s in a room people's eyes are always pulled to him, even if he’s just quietly leaving work for the night. </p><p>Then again, that might just be Martin. </p><p>It’s become routine by now, though. Slipping out of the bed he shares with his boss (ex-boss?) at seven each morning to make them both breakfast from whatever they got on their weekly visit to town. He doesn’t start cooking right away, though, unless he’d arbitrarily decided breakfast is going to be a whole production that day. Wouldn’t make sense, anyway, considering Jon won’t be up until late morning, and Martin likes eating with him or at least drinking tea at the same table if he couldn’t stave off his own hunger until then. </p><p>(After they’d been at the cottage for exactly one entire week, Martin had gone all out on breakfast. Bought quiches and tea from that fancy shop in town and scrounged up online recipes for any breakfast pastry he’d ever seen Jon eat at the Institute. He’d spent a good couple hours baking, and when Jon finally stumbled into the tiny kitchen/dining room/living room, he’d given Martin the most confused, happy smile he had ever seen. </p><p>“What’s with all the… baked goods?” he’d asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. </p><p>Martin had laughed sheepishly as he set the plate down in front of him. “We’ve been in hiding for a whole week, I guess? It’s a special occasion, Jon.” </p><p>Jon snorted, taking a delicate bite from a piece of quiche. “You know, I do vaguely remember a time in our life when that wouldn’t have been something to celebrate.” He made a quietly appreciative noise as he tucked in. </p><p>Martin grinned, taking the seat opposite him. “Well, you certainly don’t seem to be complaining.” Jon had rolled his eyes, straight-faced as ever, but Martin could see how his eyes crinkled at the corners, and he felt so much love pressing up inside him in a sudden rush that it made his bones hurt, just a little. <em> Our life. </em>)</p><p>Predictably, Jon had tried to tell him from the outset he didn’t have to make breakfast for him. <em> I can do it; I’m not an absolute child, Martin. </em> But he’d held fast nonetheless—it would be stupid, he insisted, for him to just sit around if he was getting up so early anyway. Jon’s mouth had pulled sideways at that. <em> You don’t have to get up so early. You can stay. I won’t mind. </em> And, well. Martin hadn’t known how to reply to <em> that,</em> so he didn’t reply to it at all, just shrugged and told Jon he could do the dishes if he was so keen to help out, and he’d looked so relieved at the meager offering that something inside Martin twisted. But he didn’t say anything, and neither did Martin.</p><p>So, they haven’t worked anything out. </p><p>A tiny, hopeful part of him had expected some sort of switch to flip when they left The Lonely, he supposes. Had expected tearful confessions and long, cinematic kisses and a romantic flight from London, running away hand in hand to—well, wherever was safe; he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He’d gotten hand in hand, at least as they walked that foggy, desaturated shore, and he’d gotten the escape (road trip in a car borrowed from Basira, which was a little less romantic, but he could still stare wistfully at Jon’s profile sometimes when he didn’t have his eyes on the road). But the beach faded away into the streets of London, and Jon dropped his hand as soon as they were truly out of it all to fumble for his phone and call Basira, and then it was a blur as they rushed to the warehouse to meet up and then leave as quickly as possible while Elias was still indisposed; they hadn’t even had time to go back to their respective flats to grab so much as a change of clothes. He’d even kind of hoped they might talk once they’d reached the safehouse, but Jon had just staggered inside, almost losing his footing from exhaustion before Martin had swooped in to prop him up, and really all they could do after taking a preliminary sweep of the cottage was stumble, dreamlike, to bed. There was a moment. He’d caught Jon watching him as he pulled the covers up over them both, gaze still eerily sharp even through sleepiness. Vulnerable, too, more than Martin had ever seen until that moment. But then he’d rolled over to what would quickly become Jon’s Bed Corner and curled up tight, and that had thoroughly been the end of that. </p><p>Martin had given it up by daybreak. For the better, probably. </p><p>He sips his tea—chamomile, taken with honey rather than sugar—and watches the darkening clouds break, giving way to sheets of rain. He still likes the rain. He knows most people find it miserable, and it certainly can be after too much time spent with it, but the pattern it drums on the roof is soothing, and it turns everything so green and fresh and vivid. Honestly, he doesn’t even mind the wet; he was the kind of stupid, romantic kid to go out into the rain and dance for all the good it did him. Back then, he’d even harbored fantasies of dancing with somebody else out there, barefoot on damp grass, laughing and senseless with love. </p><p>(Jon likes the rain perfectly well but tries to stay out of it, grouses about what it does to his hair. The first weekend on the walk back from town, they’d gotten caught in a sudden downpour, and Martin had grinned up at the sky like it had given him some wondrous gift while Jon let out an undignified screech and tried to cover up their bag of groceries with his body, staring reproachfully at Martin. By the time they’d made it back to the house, which Martin has been valiantly trying for weeks not to call <em> home </em> even in his head, Jon’s hair was soaked through and curling up at the ends. He’d looked like a drowned rat and had pouted in front of the fire for about an hour until he finally warmed up, cold-blooded creature that he is. All told, it had been distressingly adorable, and Martin had bitten back a smile as he pushed a warm mug of tea into his hands. Jon had smiled gratefully before turning back to watch the flames again, and Martin had damned his traitor heart for leaping as it did.) </p><p>The storms feel cleansing, here, more than they ever did in London. Even the fog doesn’t feel as ominous as it could, creeping in light on cat’s paws through the hills and covering their house in a thick haze. It still makes Martin’s stomach drop to look at, even on the good days, but it’s not so bad with Jon sat opposite him on the couch, nose in a book, socked feet tucked against Martin’s legs. It kills him, sometimes. The time they spent apart, and the time they’re spending together now. How easily they slipped into this thing that feels remarkably like married domesticity. Certainly a far cry from Martin, twentysomething and desperate, bringing in tea every day to his boss who never gave him anything more than a curl of the lip but damn if it wasn’t enough to pull him back for more every time, no matter how cruelly Jon had snapped at him or how casually he brushed him off. Now, Jon brushes their fingertips together reaching for the bread at dinner, reads poetry aloud with a self-deprecating smile from the anthologies Martin bought from the town’s bookshop if he asks, rambles about documentaries he’d seen years ago and can recall perfectly. Sometimes, over a bottle of cheap red, Martin can get him to talk about his college days in theatre, can watch him flush in embarrassment about his bold, vibrant, wonderfully foolish past self. Sometimes Jon will insist on making him dinner for once, and at least one part of the meal is just a little burned because he got distracted midway through, and he won’t apologize, just lift his chin and watch Martin, who’s doing a poor job at hiding a pathetically fond smile, eat the whole thing anyway. </p><p>God, he loves Jon. </p><p>It used to feel like a death sentence on his head. Goodness knows it made him miserable enough, for a while. But after a while, that hopeless tension eased into something a little more manageable. He still wants Jon with every bone in his body. After everything, he thinks he always will. Even if he never, ever gets to have him.</p><p>“Martin?” </p><p>He jolts in surprise and only barely avoids spilling tea all over himself, and he fixes a reproachful stare on Jon, who’s slumped his way into the kitchen, blinking slowly. “You startled me!”</p><p>His lips twist wryly and he yawns, stretches catlike, before unhurriedly making his way over. “I can see that.” </p><p>“Oh, shut up,” Martin mutters. </p><p>Jon gives him a sleepy grin that makes something stutter in Martin’s chest, and says, “Want me to make breakfast?” </p><p>“I can,” he replies, shaking himself out of his own head again. “Really. I just got a little—distracted. The rain,” and he waves his hand toward the window in explanation. Jon hums an affirmation but still gives him that look, like he’s trying to go through and catalogue every emotion Martin’s feeling right now to make sure nothing is amiss. “I’m fine,” he insists, and Jon shrugs at him and goes to take his place at the table, propping his chin up on his hands to watch him idly. </p><p>It’s slow going, trying to live with Jon without being self-conscious. It’s kind of just an occupational hazard, though, even when he hadn’t been spending most of his waking hours with the man. Jon has this habit of focusing all his attention on one thing at a time, and it was almost eerie before Martin was used to it. Jon’s eyes on him. He can almost always sense them now, and they track him most of the time they’re in a room together. Martin doubts he’s even intentionally doing it, though there was a time he thought it was some weird intimidation tactic (it worked, but it was also kinda hot, so. Win some, lose some). Those dark eyes watch him with a constant intensity, as if he’s something to drink in and analyze, something to hold in his mind and never forget. It makes his skin prickle, but not necessarily in a bad way. He wonders, sometimes, if Jon knows about how he feels and is simply too awkward to address it, if he Sees and is so disgusted he puts it out of his mind any time it comes up. </p><p><em> Not that I blame him, </em> he thinks, sighing heavily. Jon watches this, too, and the little line between his eyebrows that didn’t exist when Martin first met him furrows deeper. </p><p>“You sure you’re alright?” </p><p>“I’m <em> fine </em>, Jon. Eggs okay?” he says, cracking one into the pan without waiting for a response. Jon shrugs and leans back in the chair, turning that focused gaze out the window into the rain. </p><p>Martin’s watching him out of the corner of his eye, now. It’s just—he looks so soft in the mornings. There’s this brief grace period while he’s asleep and right after he wakes up where the worries of the years haven’t quite caught up to him yet, and his face is smooth and almost relaxed. It was foreign, the first time he saw it. He looks gentle, content. There’s a small scattering of barely-visible freckles dotting his nose and cheekbones that Martin hadn’t noticed until their third morning in the cottage, when he’d woken up with Jon’s face just inches from his and his eyes had crossed trying to take it all in before everything got stolen away from them. The crooked slope of his nose. The pale, silvery scars from Prentiss. The faint cut on his throat. The patchy beard growing in (he keeps forgetting to shave, but it’s charming so Martin keeps “forgetting” to remind him). The curve of his eyelashes against his cheek. That black hair shot through with gray. He’s not a pale man, but the years stuck indoors in the Archives leached much of the color and vibrance from his complexion, and Martin wants desperately to lie in the sun with him. Martin had held his breath, praying that Jon wouldn’t wake up to Martin staring at him unguarded, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away for another long minute. It felt like—like such a blessing, getting to see him so gentle in the mornings. He’s stolen some of Martin’s pyjamas, even though Martin had been with him when they’d bought their clothes and he knows Jon has his own. He doesn’t mind, though. Likes seeing him in his overlarge t-shirts, staring out the window in this home—<em>house, </em> goddamnit—that they share together. </p><p>(He almost feels guilty, yearning hopelessly after Jonathan Sims while the rest of his world burns itself out back in London. He wishes he felt guilty, leaving it all behind. But he’s so selfishly, horribly grateful that he doesn’t.) </p><p>Jon is still watching the rain fall outside, eyes unfocused and calm. His fingers are rubbing together idly, like he’s trying to feel the texture of a cloth that isn’t there. Martin knows his hands are calloused, and kind of wishes he didn’t; it would make his life easier. </p><p>(Jon had played guitar when he was in college. He’d liked how meditative it was, how much focus it took to get his hands to cooperate and create something beautiful. But the guitar he’d learned on was Georgie’s, and when they’d split up he had no claim to it, and Jon still talks about it with this quiet yearning, eyes falling shut as he remembers the feel of steel strings beneath his fingers. Still. Martin likes to imagine a younger-faced, unscathed Jon with a frown of concentration on his face, picking out some elaborate soaring pattern with nimble fingers and the natural grace he has had about him for as long as he’s known him, lips pressed together, that gorgeous furrow forming between his eyebrows.)  </p><p>“Your eggs,” he calls over from his place by the window, and Martin swears and turns back to the pan, where the eggs are just on the edge of burning; he assumes Jon Knew rather than knew. “Are you sure you’re alright?” and oh, no, he’s circling the kitchen counter to stand just on the other side of it, keeping those few feet of space between them but leaning his elbows onto the surface to peer at him, all serious scrutiny and slightly tilted head. </p><p>“I said I was fine,” Martin replies peevishly, flipping the eggs in a well-practiced motion, and Jon just blinks at him. “I’m <em> fine,” </em> he repeats, feeling a bit like a broken record, and Jon still doesn’t look convinced. </p><p>“Okay,” he says, but doesn’t move, attention now fully back on him. Martin sighs and shuffles the eggs off the pan onto the nearest plate. </p><p>“Cheese?” </p><p>“Yes, that sounds good. Martin, you’re not… slipping, are you?” he asks intently, and Martin has to fight the urge to clench his fists; he closes his eyes and forces himself to relax. </p><p>“I’m not.” He begins to grate the cheese vigorously, <em> please, God, can we just stop talking about it, </em>but he can sense that Jon is unconvinced. “I think I would notice if I was falling back into The Lonely. I’m pretty sure you would, at that. Besides, I mean… I’m not alone. I’m with you. We’re…” </p><p>Jon nods in assured satisfaction and reaches over to take the plate. “Yes. We are.” And then he hesitates, withdraws his hand. “Martin—” </p><p>“Yeah?” His voice is sharper than he’d like it to be, and he—he doesn’t want to be sharp, not with anybody, and certainly not with Jon, so he softens it and tries again. “Yeah?” It’s hard, not to be unkind. Once you’ve started. Once you’re practiced. He remembers those lonely, awful months, and his gut wrenches. </p><p>Jon’s hand flutters nervously in the air between them, and Martin finds himself captivated with its jittery movement. It’s the burned one, and that makes his stomach jolt in a different way. If he ever so much as <em>hears </em>about Jude Perry—</p><p>The hand is covering his, now, uncertain and barely-there. Martin can feel every point of contact, where the pad of Jon’s thumb brushes over the tendons on the back of his hand, where his palm rests on his knuckles, where his fingertips lightly, so lightly, touch the bones of his wrist. Martin looks at Jon. His face is twisted up in a way that makes Martin want to reach out and smooth out the deep lines, get them to relax into something calm and happy. Even now, as he looks at Jon questioningly, the barest touch of his skin sends heat skittering down his spine, and he lets out a sharp breath that makes Jon inhale and lurch into words. </p><p>“Martin, I—you do know I—it’s just that—”</p><p>For a couple moments he watches him stutter, try to find his way to what he wants to tell him, and then flips his hand to hold Jon’s, and the other man shudders to a stop, looking at him with wide, dark eyes. He looks so afraid in that moment, hair sticking up on one side from his pillow, those dark bags under his eyes still stubbornly refusing to leave, the freckles spattered over his high cheekbones, the scar on his lip from when he’d fallen while reading a book as a five-year-old and hadn’t watched close enough where he was going, the furrow between his brows. So afraid, but open, too, still sleep-soft and warm from bed, still wearing a worn t-shirt stolen from Martin’s drawer, still waiting for—what? His hand is warm from holding his mug of tea, and Martin didn’t miss how he’d looked down at it in awe, lightning-fast, when Martin had first moved to grasp it. He knows—he knows nobody touches Jon anymore, not kindly. It has to have been years. And in that moment, Martin realizes how awful it is, sleeping four inches apart every night, too afraid to reach out and hold what so desperately wants to be held. </p><p>So Martin leans over the counter and kisses him. </p><p>At first, Jon freezes, so he pulls away and hurriedly says, “I’m s—” </p><p>—but he doesn’t get any further than that before Jon is throwing himself forward, ribs pushing awkwardly into the wood so he can pull Martin down and back to him, mouths crashing together clumsily until Martin can get a hand on Jon’s jaw and tilt his head just so, guide them into something a little softer. Jon lets out this quiet sigh that travels through Martin’s whole body and there’s nothing to do but kiss him harder, running a tongue over his bottom lip and feeling how Jon trembles. They’re still holding hands, Martin realizes through some haze, so chaste but their fingers locked together so tightly. <em> I know the way. </em>He can feel Jon smiling against his lips, so he smiles back and goes to kiss the corner of his mouth, the tip of his nose, and that damned line on his brow. Jon chuckles quietly with a note of something that might be amazement, and it makes Martin’s eyes sting, embarrassingly, so he shuts them tight and brushes another soft kiss against his lips. </p><p>With his eyes closed, he says, “I’ve loved you for—so long.” </p><p>Jon’s hold on his hand tightens for a moment. “I—yeah. Yeah.” Without even opening his eyes, Martin can tell the other man is blushing. “By which I mean—” He cuts off into embarrassed silence, and Martin laughs, not unkindly. “I’m sorry. I can say it—just—“ Still floundering. He squeezes his hand. </p><p>“It’s okay,” he tells him, and he means it, and he can tell Jon knows it by the sigh of relief against his mouth just before he goes in to kiss him again. Jon makes another quiet noise and tangles his free hand up in Martin’s hair, dragging him in further. There’s a quiet fervor to it that verges on desperation. <em> The world isn’t ending, </em> Martin reminds himself, <em> there’s nothing to run from, no need to hide. You are here, he is here, neither of you are leaving, </em> and he keeps it slow as much as the heat pulls at him while Jon tugs lightly at Martin’s curls and seems to be half-climbing onto the countertop just to keep kissing him. He almost has to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and then Jon is laughing too, that self-conscious almost-bark that Martin so rarely gets to hear. His hips are pressed uncomfortably into the edge of the counter and his neck is getting sore from the odd angle. </p><p>“Want to—move this elsewhere?” he offers, and he tries his utmost not to make it sound like an innuendo. </p><p>Jon deadpans, “But my eggs will get cold, Martin,” and just for that, Martin has to drag him back in, and then they’re there for another five minutes before Jon breaks away to whine, “Martin, my <em> breakfast,” </em> and “if you’re going to insist on taking care of me for no reason you should at least <em> commit,” </em>so he makes some more eggs and they hold hands while Jon eats and Martin is smiling so damn wide his cheeks hurt and he feels only a little bit ridiculous about it. </p><p>And that night, Martin finally, finally holds Jon while they sleep, and he doesn’t wake up until it’s nearly noon.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading! title stolen from the title of a lemon demon song i liked a normal amount but that phrase stuck with me for weeks for some reason. my tumblr is <a href="https://boneroutes.tumblr.com">@boneroutes</a> (i do art too!) if you wanna hang out and get funky over there. i cranked this bad boy out instead of studying for my tests tomorrow, so send me good vibes i guess? it's kinda on me, though, so you could send bad vibes too and that would be totally fair and deserved. also if you feel at all inclined to drop a comment i would be thrilled! thanks again for reading :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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